I conducted a hundred interviews, refused a hundred people - and only then learned how to interview

I would not wish you to get to me for an interview about two years ago. I spent about a hundred, and for all the time, maybe four people took it. I don't know why, but Eychary thought it was cool. The fame of a strict interviewer was in front of me. My acquaintances called me to interview for foreign teams, and even for foreign companies, about which you hear every day. And everywhere - no one passed.

The candidate cannot tell about the garbage collector or cannot even write to me the sorting by the vial - which means he is not capable of anything, I thought.

All the beautiful business talk (increase the search funnel, optimize the hiring algorithm, build communication, increase loyalty to the HR brand) also collapsed on me - the flow of candidates poured into the carefully rebuilt corridor, and I was corked in it. Not on purpose - people really did not fit my criteria, and I had no idea to play along with anyone. I was a real stress test man, a super whistleblower and impostors. The fact that the percentage of “successful revelations” was kept at the level of 90% did not bother anyone.

You see, corporations that use colorful schemes on presentation slides about hiring algorithms are not really on your side. People for them are a commodity, a resource and tsiferki, and while you are not inside the corporation, you have no place to choose your cynically. A stapler broke, whipped off a candidate, spilled coffee on the floor - problems of one scale.

Then I heard vaguely that on Habré time-month-and-more often whine about the wrong interview. Of course, I thought, probably interviews are some assholes who are not cleared out by clever men like me. Even the thought did not skip that I could be an asshole myself.

Now I think this: if you did not get to my interviews then it is good. I was greatly mistaken because I myself got into the industry like a virus.

I had a rather strange career. I started programming at school. I lived with my parents, from time to time I carried out small orders for freelancing so as not to sit on my neck, and I studied all my free time myself. Studied really well - just in a good way.

I read the best books on JS, looked at the code of real developers, on github gaining popularity and analyzed the behavior of the code written by me or others in firebug. Learned English, due to the lack of suitable articles in runet. JavaScript seemed just like a magic tool to me. I quickly enough was able to deeply master the language itself, its pitfalls and features. I was interested not only in the language itself, but also why it became what it is. Its history and philosophy.

When I seriously learned to write the code myself, it seemed to me that it was humiliating to get a job as an intern or a junior. At that time I had already left the mathematics department, served in the army, and did not want to see myself as an errand boy. I had fellow developers, they worked like juna and used soulless, something like C # or Java. And I felt well - I already understand my technology much better than they do mine.

The first offer was made to me when I helped another - already professional - to develop, they saw my code and called for an interview.

I hate to go through technical interviews. Seriously, I was worried every time no matter how many interviews I passed. I am an introvert, and for me it is a lot of stress, because of which I can forget even simple things. Instead of telling or showing what I can do, I struggle with my anxiety, giving out monosyllabic phrases. Although these phrases are the right answers to questions and often contain a deeper meaning than expected - I am uncomfortable.

I blamed a bunch of things on my excitement.

Most interviews take place in some kind of negotiation, where there is no one else. On the one hand, it is convenient, no one interferes, on the other hand, it is a cage from which you either go away eaten, or bitten, or full.

Your resume is viewed carelessly, within a few seconds. The interviewer will not qualify. Do not think what and how best to ask based on your resume, and make a stupid, taking with him / someone else's list of the same type with questions. This is a terrible evil. Over time, the list becomes a habit, and the interviewer ceases to think, expecting the exact answer "as in the textbook." His words can not be explained, too, in half the cases. This half falls on unqualified people, who, it seems, have their brains filled with fat.

Lists of the same type - the scourge of success because of the format of the event. It is called “interview” when one asks and the other answers. A little bit more and it can be reduced to questioning, which is what many do by ticking their lists. On this written or unwritten questionnaire, a false idea of ​​a person appears.

The interviewer has no time to wait for half an hour of reasoning. He's got some kind of task, his june is sinking and he needs to rush to help, meetings or something else. There is always 1000 and 1 case. The interviewer may rush, jump from question to question, confusing, puffing, snorting and thus spoiling everything.

The interviewer is already at work, he is already loaded and in demand - it means he is a good fellow. And the candidate, since he just wants to join your team, it means that he is not important, if not at all flawed. They look down on him with a machine gun. And this is the worst thing - a bunch of pompous lack of words dare to hold an interview and are trying to prove their superiority to everyone and everything. Patients with the impostor syndrome who fear for their self-esteem. Their goal - to fill up.

At the next interview, where they observed all of the above, I pereklinilo. I got angry - at the system, at the arrogant interviewers who do not want to see me beyond the barrier of excitement, at themselves and at all the shackled but hardworking modest people. I got angry so that I began to speak, and hard, and talked for an hour, until my lecture turned into a reverse interview, questions were already coming from me, where by chance, in the heat, I myself flunked on their lead theory.

I tried to make an offer, but I sent them to hell.

But since it was a success, I decided that this was necessary. That clever people, as I considered myself, should get to work, punching my forehead with the barriers of skepticism - just as I did. That is, selecting people myself, I began to look for my doubles. But at the same time he became a double of all interviewers whom he hated. You see, I was like Lev Bronstein, who took the pseudonym “Trotsky” in honor of the warden who broke him in prison.

I began to ask all the same, I did everything exactly the same thing that depresses me. At the first interviews, I didn’t even disdain tricky questions, for example: “Why does NaN have a number type?”. And enjoyed the growing uncertainty of my opponent.

The arrogance came down when the whole recruitment campaign was wasted. In my project, my team did not find people at all, and alone, of course, I am not able to do it. And I felt uneasy, ashamed, doubtful and strange. I stayed at the broken trough, and I could not blame others anymore. Then I decided to revise my approach on all points.



At first I stopped treating interviews as something simple. He began to prepare for everyone to think over the issues and the plan of the meeting. Seeing the next resume, I carefully studied it. For example, I meet “Senior full-stack developer” on the position of “Senior frontend developer” with a brief experience in technology: JS: 1 year, React: 4 months, Ruby (on Rails): 2 years. "I used to throw it in the trash, or I used to take my old cunning little list. Now I read what I don’t know (the same rails), to at least somehow be closer to the env of the interlocutor. Thinking through the course of the interview, I threw out tricky questions from areas I’m not familiar with.

I simply asked questions on topics far from me, smoothly proceeded to general questions - design patterns or network interaction. The candidate was already calm, seeing that I did not val and listen attentively. Then I proceeded to a thorough survey of the position stack. But it was still bad here. If on general issues I could omit the nuances, then there is no way. And by the end of the interview failed. The candidate was left upset, and I was left without a colleague.

At such moments I was often tormented by the thought - well, why are these candidates not like at least my friends? Yes, even as distant friends. When I discuss the development with people from my circle - at least once someone felt insecure. My friends tell me interesting things, and I do not need to pull anything from them with tongs. Listening to friends, I never doubt their skill - even if I have not seen their code. Why are the candidates crumpling and stupid? Do they really do not know how?

And then I realized - I never question my friends, having gone into a laptop. We tell and comment on what we heard. They reason, but do not give me the answers I’m waiting for.

With this in mind, I decided to experiment a little and completely get away from the standard interview format. I tried to arrange a conversation, a dialogue, a discussion - anything but the old “question-answer”. Far from easy task, especially when the candidate is as introvert as you.

“I see Ruby in your resume.” I tried to write on rubies once, but I became sick.
- I do not know, I liked it.
- Well, in general, I then had no place to apply it. Maybe I did not consider something.
- I had a couple of applications, there he came up.
- And show? Maybe even understand what people like these nasty ruby.

After this, usually the person began to liberate himself, and it became very comfortable for me. I shared my experience and attitude towards things, the interlocutor was interested in persuading me, and not proving out of the blue that he knows the answer to my question.

We started to really talk. It seems to be out of business, but it gave me an idea about the ways in which my interlocutor reasoned, an opinion was formed in relation to teamwork. A detailed picture was collected, and from my interviews no one (including me) left dull. True, such gatherings took more time, and I sometimes had to explain that a productive interview was a long matter.

After that, I quickly gained more than five people, because I saw people in them, talked and learned to accept their mistakes. Perhaps now it will bring me to the exact opposite - but if I were my will, I could take in general everyone who wants to work. Screening at interviews seemed to me an old ritual, which was invented for me, and which I just liked, like a game of cat and mouse. Now it sometimes seems to me that anyone under the right guidance and in a good team will quickly master anything. And it seems to me that it became more interesting to teach people than to filter them.

I understand, reading hundreds of articles about job interviews that go out once a month or more often, you are used to seeing thin life hacks, new algorithms, mathematical analyzes, before and after graphics, psychological and organizational tricks. It would probably be more interesting to read them. More useful! But honestly, a sense of good is often illusory and deceptive, and the naked truth is always anti-interesting.

If they give you a bold textbook with some fashionable interviewing methodology from eminent gurus and a wad of mint napkins with the words “Do not ask - tell yourself and they will tell you in reply” - you will probably choose a textbook. But sometimes everything is much simpler.